About the book:

How can we love our neighbors amid so much division and hurt?

Loving your neighbor as yourself would be easy if your neighbors were all people you understood, people you agreed with, people like you. But what about playground bullies, colleagues, refugees, online adversaries? They’re all our neighbors, and Jesus said to love them. Every one. But how?

Lauren Casper believes the key is the lost art of empathy, stepping into other people’s shoes and asking what if?—what if it were my child? What if it were me? Casper helps us discover how to

• identify our blind spots and tune our hearts to the stories around us;
• seek and extend forgiveness with grace and humility; and
• engage in diverse and meaningful relationships.

Following these steps will enable us to connect in simple but life-altering ways, to respond to conflict with grace, bring about needed change, and shine God’s unconditional love into a dark world.

My Thoughts:

Loving Well in a Broken World is a beautiful and heartwarming book that highlights the importance of empathy. In times like these where tensions are high and our differences are often more visible than our similarities, Lauren reminds us that empathy shouldn’t just be reserved for those we already know, love, and agree with. By choosing to empathize only with those we relate to, we are essentially passively adding fuel to a world that’s already burning with hate. It isn’t until we step outside of ourselves, listen, recognize our blind spots that we’re able to have meaningful discussions, form life-changing connections, and facilitate change.

However, as Lauren discusses in Loving Well in a Broken World, finding our empathy can sometimes be difficult when we don’t understand why something is happening or when it isn’t happening directly to us. This is what she refers to as our “blind spots”.

We all have blind spots– things we don’t see that are nevertheless there. Our blindness to them might stem from ignorance, lack of awareness, or prejudice. Whether realized or not, blind spots arise whenever a voice within convinces us, If it’s not happening to me, it’s not happening. When we believe this, we miss out on an opportunity to love those among us who are hurting and maybe even set ourselves on a collision course to be the cause of their pain.

Loving Well in a Broken World helps us recognize those blind spots by encouraging us to do what we should have been doing in the first place; taking the time to LISTEN and putting ourselves in other people’s shoes. I really enjoyed reading this book because it’s enlightening and hopeful. Lauren offers several ways in which we can develop and strengthen our empathy while candidly discussing her own journey with it. No one is perfect. We all say and do things we shouldn’t have but taking ownership of those words and actions and learning from them is the only way we can improve ourselves and the world around us.

Giveaway!

I have one copy of Loving Well in a Broken World to give away to one lucky winner. (US only) Just leave a comment below to be entered.

Purchase Links

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Thomas Nelson

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